77. Untying the Knot (5)
77. Untying the Knot (5)
- 1 -
"You're here, Master."
"Master. I was in the library and got the news late. I'm sorry."
Though Shue had gone to fetch Sonia, Maria arrived with them.
The two seemed to have recovered much of their former relationship.
They must have been together from the start; Maria in her maid uniform and Sonia in her mage's robes clasped each other's hands briefly before letting go.
Seeing them rely on each other like that, I felt hopeful they could endure whatever might happen.
Of course, for that to happen, they both needed to stay alive.
"Have you been well, Maria? Sonia. I'm the one who went to inspect the dungeon first without seeing you, so why are you apologizing? It's fine. It's good to see you working hard."
"Thank you."
"Then, let us go. Ah, Maria, it's alright if you don't come along."
However, where we were going now, I was a little reluctant to bring Maria.
"What? Why...?"
"Because where we're going now is the underground prison. Of course, it doesn't matter if you're fine with it, but..."
After all, she had the experience of staying in a similar place for a long time.
She might have PTSD. Consideration was only natural.
"Why the underground prison...?"
"I'll tell you if you're coming. If you're not, it's something you don't need to hear."
"..."
"It's a matter unrelated to whether you come or not, so think comfortably."
"The prison...?"
Just as expected.
When she heard we were going to the underground prison, Maria's eyes filled with unease.
Sonia looked uncomfortable as well. Because if this wasn't about Maria, it meant it was about her.
Then, as if something occurred to her, Sonia asked me.
"By any chance, is this related to those nobles who came here a few days ago...?"
"Clever. It is."
At my answer, they seemed somewhat relieved, but Sonia and Maria still pondered with eyes full of questions and anxiety.
Though we had newly established the underground prison this time, they would never have been down there, so their unease was only natural.
The nobles staying here had their meals delivered not by them but by skeletons, so they'd never had a reason to enter.
If they had confirmed the signs of people being confined here a few days ago and today, it was only natural they'd feel fear. Especially Maria, of the two, had the experience of being detained for quite a long time, so it would be even worse for her.
Fundamentally, they were the kind of people for whom it was only natural to find it strange that I, a dungeon lord, was acting so gently.
Nevertheless, Maria gathered her courage.
"I will go. I'm also uneasy about sending only Sonia to a place like that..."
"A courageous decision. I like it."
"I'm not doubting you, Master. But..."
"It's fine to doubt me, Maria."
To Maria, who was looking at me curiously, I spoke.
The words I had etched into her.
"Didn't I tell you? That it's okay even if you hate me."
"Ah... yes."
After the light returned to her briefly dazed eyes, I brought the two of them down to the basement.
And only after joining up with Eve, who had gone down first and was waiting with the door open, did I talk about what they needed to know.
"I have a gift for you here, Sonia."
"A gift...? In the prison?"
"Yes. I'm not confident you'll be pleased, though. Eve? Open it for us."
- Tak.
Cheolkeong!
The steel door at the deepest part of the underground prison opened as I spoke.
"Lady...!"
Kaang!
Inside, a woman who had been hanging her head as if unconscious, her disheveled orange hair streaming down, jerked her head up at the sound of the opening door and rushed forward.
Elenore Claiamel. It was her.
- 2 -
'Why... why?'
In the darkness, Eleanor was feeling something gradually growing inside her chest.
'Weren't you going to use me? The dungeon lord...'
The thing swelling inside her, feeding on her rising thoughts, emotions, and questions, was 'despair'.
'Otherwise there'd be no need to capture my whole family. Isn't that right...?'
Libertas, upon returning to the dungeon, had immediately separated her from her family and isolated her in a solitary cell.
Of course, Libertas had in truth simply prioritized inspecting the dungeon over her matter.
She had first received the handover of tasks that Scarlet had long supervised as acting manager, showing consideration so that she could return to her primary duties.
'Al... Al almost died...'
But there was no way she could know that.
What Eleanor knew was the contract, that if she didn't obey the dungeon lord's orders, one of her family would die.
In fact, when she had tried to resist, saying she couldn't understand, she had witnessed her younger sibling clutching their throat, on the verge of suffocating.
So she had entered the solitary cell for now, but it still didn't change the fact that she couldn't understand.
'But why was I locked up alone? I can't understand... I can't... understand understand understand...'
Cheolkeong!
While she was sinking into the despair she herself was creating.
The brief solitude, sunken in darkness and silence, not knowing how much time had passed or what had happened to her family, ended with that sound.
"Lady...!"
The moment she confirmed Libertas's figure, she tried to kneel before her.
She didn't know what was going on, but she had to somehow receive the dungeon master's forgiveness. Even though she had thought she'd already received it, whatever the case.
Kaang!
Of course, that attempt was blocked by the mana restraint around her neck...
She didn't care, repeatedly trying to approach the dungeon lady, and spoke with a grotesquely distorted expression.
"Weren't you, weren't you going to use me? That's why you spared me, right? Yes?"
A person's mental balance tends to collapse easily when betrayed by expectations.
Though it was practically something she had been forced to accept anyway, for Eleanor, who had been imagining a new life in the dungeon, the sudden solitary confinement was incomprehensible and despairing.
"Unfortunately."
Of course, Rita had no reason to fulfill the expectations born of her confirmation bias.
In the first place, her deliberately using Eleanor to kill the branch family members had also been a ploy to strengthen that very confirmation bias.
Though the real victims were not her but Sonia and Leonis, she too had lost a subordinate to her.
Eleanor was an interesting subject for Rita, but there was no reason for her sentiments to be favorable.
"The role I desire from you is a different one, Eleanor. It's about concluding a certain matter."
Rita could see Eleanor's eyes gradually staining with despair, but she ignored it and told the prisoner what she wanted.
Then the prisoner, swelling with hope again, asked.
"What, whatever the matter is..."
"It is said that whoever begins a thing must finish it. Even though you started this out of vengeance against someone else, I have nothing to do with that person, do I? So I have no choice but to hold you responsible."
Rita trampled that hope once again.
"That's already over...!"
"Did I ever say so?"
In the end, Eleanor froze, her mouth gaping, unable to continue. It was because no matter how much she racked her brain, she had no memory of Libertas ever saying that.
Watching the frozen prisoner, the dungeon master furrowed her brow. It was an intentional display.
"How insolent. Judging my intentions on your own."
"No, no...! I'm sorry. I'm sorry. So please, at least spare my family...! End it with me!"
Amidst all that, Eleanor was looking after her family before herself.
Rita inwardly raised her score as she watched.
'She's consistent. It is a shame.'
No matter how she looked at it, she was a talent who seemed like she would have turned out quite useful if she had grown up normally in a family that wasn't like that.
But she didn't express that, and instead looked at Sonia, who had been waiting behind her.
"Do you know who she is?"
"No. ... But according to what you said, Master, she is..."
Sonia shook her head once, then looked down at Eleanor with complicated eyes.
Her master simply affirmed that guess.
"Yes. She is the one who drove your senior to that state."
"...! It was you, young lady? Right?"
Cheolkeong!
Hearing that, Eleanor immediately turned her gaze from Rita to look at Sonia and approached on her knees.
Her blind desperation, still ignoring the shackle around her neck, caused her to fall backward a couple of times, but her demeanor was too desperate to mock as merely comical.
"I'm sorry. I'm truly sorry! So please, just kill me! I deserve to die! So please!"
"Why would someone like you do such a thing..."
Just as Rita had initially expected, sympathy leaked into Sonia's voice as she saw Eleanor in that state.
However, every judgment must always be made after knowing the criminal accurately.
Libertas immediately ordered Eve.
"Lift her head."
- Tak!
"Ugh!"
Approaching Eleanor's side in that state, she whispered one thing to her, but loud enough for Sonia and Maria, standing right there, to hear.
"She is a mage, but she's still only at the introductory stage and can't even count for one person. The person you're begging to is such a child. She isn't qualified."
"...!"
And what flickered across Eleanor's face at that moment.
It was an expression that directly expressed the emotions named humiliation and disgust.
People don't change easily. For Eleanor, who had lived her entire life that way, this time of suffering was far too short for her to change.
"You...!"
"No, no, no! I was wrong! So just me, please just me...!"
When the one who had been confessing her sins and begging to spare only her family showed such an expression and attitude for even a moment, Sonia was quite shocked.
Even though Eleanor quickly regained her senses and bowed her head again to apologize and plead, Sonia was too shocked to notice.
Even for her, who had seen quite a bit of the dirty side of people, this was a rarely witnessed case.
"Whether human or demon. Demons are simpler, but multifaceted aspects exist, Sonia. You mustn't see only one facet."
And Libertas's voice directed at Sonia was still gentle.
"But, Master... no matter what, that is."
"Yes. She is quite extreme. Normally one doesn't become this twisted. You could see this as a beautiful collaboration created by the combination of a fantastic environment and her personality, which is loyal to her family."
"That's..."
"She can kneel even to a monster like me for the sake of reviving her house. In fact, her family has done exactly that."
Sonia understood immediately that Libertas's words were ironic.
And thanks to that, she could understand.
That while it was true Eleanor had good points, beyond that, as she was now, she was, in some ways, an existence more harmful to humanity than a monster.
After all, in ordinary circumstances, a dagger thrust from behind is more fatal than a sword faced head-on.
"Don't misunderstand, Sonia. This kind of thing happens quite commonly in the world. Parents' obsession twisting their children."
"How did you know that, Master...?"
"Well. How did I come to know?"
Libertas, unaware that her words and actions were only deepening a misunderstanding that wasn't entirely a misunderstanding for Sonia, brushed it off like that. Then she left Eleanor's side, rising from her spot as she spoke lastly.
"This is the gift I give you. I hope you can resolve the knot in your heart."
"Master..."
"I won't accept thanks. It's not something to be thanked for anyway. I'm tired. I should sleep. Once you decide, find me and tell me yourself."
"... Yes, Master."
Of course, the body of a dungeon lord couldn't possibly feel physical fatigue.
"Shue. Will you help them?"
"Yeah... don't worry."
"Then. I'm trusting you."
"Yeah...!"
Sonia and Maria, realizing that her words were meant to give Sonia time to judge Eleanor, bowed their heads to see her off.
As Libertas's small form disappeared beyond the underground prison, Sonia and Maria, left behind, looked at each other.
"What will you do...?"
"First... I'll talk with her."
"Alright. I'll be by your side."
"Thank you. Sister."
Their gazes turned to Eleanor.
"I'm begging you... just me, just me..."
She was still bowing her head, pleading.
Continuing relentlessly, even as she grew more exhausted with time.
Watching that, Sonia realized that to further understand her condition, there were people she needed to meet.
"... I want to meet her family."
"Okay. Follow me."
Shue willingly helped her.
Sonia's judgment took two more days.
The day of that judgment was also the day Rita concluded her contract with Elias.
- 3 -
Revenge and forgiveness. The odds were fifty-fifty.
The outcome was expected to depend on whether Sonia found someone to emotionally lean on and whether that person responded to Sonia.
Either way, there was nothing that would be a loss for me.
"If possible... I first want to talk with my senior again. Master."
And Sonia's choice, supported by Maria, was to first hear the thoughts of the person who held the foremost right to judge.
A situation that, under normal circumstances, should have been impossible to hear.
"That's an unexpected choice again."
"Is it not possible...?"
"Well. I think we could at least try."
But fortunately, her master was someone who could keep even the dead tethered to this world.